Meals

Batata Harra

One of the components of Ursula NYC's Palestinian / New Mexico burrito described here: https://www.instagram.com/p/C5YWUIsOlA-/ + https://www.instagram.com/erictheawkwardscone/p/C5qzKC7uvAB/?img_index=1

I wasn't able to find sujuk beef sausage or nabulsi cheese. When looking for substitutes, on reflection it's breakfast potatoes, eggs, jalapeño, sausage, mozzarella… basically a breakfast burrito. So I got beef sausage but otherwise won't pursue this.

Dan Dan Noodles

https://thewoksoflife.com/dan-dan-noodles/

I had a jar of Chinese Laundry's Dan Dan sauce (found at Foxtrot, RIP). The recipe is more from-scratch but I used it as a reference for seasoning the pork, before mixing with baby spinach, noodles, and a drizzle of chili oil.

Pearl Couscous With Creamy Feta and Chickpeas

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1019916-pearl-couscous-with-creamy-feta-and-chickpeas

Roasting the tomatoes smoked up my kitchen, so I finished cooking on the stovetop. Tasty results =)

Puff Pastry Ham & Cheese Quiche

https://www.thereciperebel.com/easy-puff-pastry-ham-and-cheese-quiche/

Used up some puff pastry, worked well, shared with family.

Quinoa Pop Krispie Treats

https://lifestyleofafoodie.com/easy-quinoa-pop-krispie-treats/

Kinda embarrassing I never attempted to make my own Rice Krispy Treats or thought about where they come from. Full recipe makes brownie-like thickness on the bottom of a loaf pan. I bought quinoa pop cereal (sweetened with maca) and made a half recipe. I'd describe the quinoa version as 'nutter butter' flavor. It was sweet, but not to the point I'd feel compelled to keep eating it.

Meanwhile the Amazon listing for kañiwa pop suggests adding it to muesli, a mango smoothie, or an energy bar with berries. A little uncertain, I might try making a krispy treat with a sprinkle of sugar.

Asides

I tried making quinoa (3/4 cup with 2x water) with the Maggi cube that I got from a West African recipe on YouTube. The cube mostly dissolves on its own, but it's better if you crush it.

Also mixed some dalle khursani, the polyploid pepper, into a pot of mac and cheese. It's a lot of spice per spoonful, so use in moderation.

While in Puebla, I tried huazontles (hyperlocal greens related to quinoa) in sort of a dumpling and covered with pumpkin pipian / mole. According to some internet searches, huazontles are also polyploid and in a 1970s paper are thought to be an ancestor of quinoa (rather than two separate polyploid events), but I didn't see any follow-up research. I'm going to check a Chicago grocery and possibly feature them in a future recipes blog.

I'm still using the sugarcane cultivated oil, but Algae Cooking Club is another alternative oil.

Couldn't find ingredients for Larry David's sandwich in Curb Your Enthusiasm; notably the episode aired in 2005 and Conan O'Brien had done a celebrity menu items segment back in 2001. The Conan podcast designed their own namesake sandwiches at a UES brunch place last year though the menu labels them "available on request".

Netflix started a documentary series Korean Fried Chicken Rhapsody about chicken in South Korea. Somewhere I'd heard (and repeated) that there was a connection to Black soldiers stationed in Korea - this is repeated by some American restaurants and Iron Chef America. This new series and Wikipedia say instead that the first fast-food fried chicken place in Korea was opened in 1977 by a man returning from studying abroad in New York City, and various trends (availability of cooking oil, arrival of KFC) inspired more Korean adoption.

Florida and Alabama banned cultivated / lab-grown meat.

I saw precooked pork belly at Trader Joe's for the first time. You brown it in a pan and then cook. This was tasty, though it didn't look appetizing at all when I first took it out of the package. Inspired by https://reddit.com/r/MalaysianFood/comments/1crqwku/basic_siew_yuk_rice/ to serve with rice and cucumber.

Trader Joe's also had sourdough bread which I tried with the New York Times grilled cheese, and a "sweet long pepper" which was tasty in red lentil curry. After some research this is a bell pepper with a shape conducive for roasting or stuffing.

Are Skittles really known as "lentils" by insiders? I saw it on Threads in May, but it's circulated as a fun fact since 2016. In September 2021 the Wikipedia article began calling Skittles button-shaped and in June 2023 it was corrected to lentil-shaped.
Another article linked to a 2012 trademark filing describing lentil-shaped pieces, which helped me find a 2003 filing saying candy lentils and M&M filings around the same time (2004–06).
A Nexstar story in 2023 found examples of chocolate lentils on the M&M web store and a 1930s candy: https://fox59.com/news/national-world/do-you-know-what-individual-mms-candies-are-called/

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